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The Death of De Gaulle

The mother of all Gallic temper tantrums is over as France gets set to rejoin NATO command.

Updated March 26, 2009 12:01 a.m. ET

The mother of all Gallic temper tantrums is over -- and a mere 43 years to the month after Charles de Gaulle booted the American GIs who liberated France, and the NATO alliance that kept it free, out of the country.

Next week, President Nicolas Sarkozy formally brings France back into the alliance's integrated military command and co-hosts the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's 60th anniversary summit. In so doing Mr. Sarkozy will start to bury de Gaulle's spirit and the legacy of "French exceptionalism."